13 ms·

Comcast has disabled a throttling system that it deployed in 2008

57 points by koolba 8y ago

cautionarytale 8y ago
Awful headline. They're supposed to provide infinite product for a fixed price because the author wants it?
- pwinnski 8y ago
  The article does go into some detail to support their claim. You might not agree with the claim, but the headline is suitable for the article.
  - endorphone 8y ago
    The article doesn't provide any argument to support the ridiculous headline. Before Comcast had a punitive financial threshold they used to throttle the heaviest users. Now they simply charge those users, while presumably the majority of people are cognizant that they should use some discretion to avoid the fees. Another user opines "it’s still limited by your maximum throughput and the number of days in a month" and this is an argument that seriously rubs me the wrong way because it's effectively a tragedy of the commons type argument -- I love having blistering fast internet when I need to download something, etc. But I realize I don't have a committed 500Mbps across the internet, and not far from me it's a shared resource.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      I was responding to the claim that an unthrottled connection is “infinite.” I wasn’t actually making an argument about throttling or overage charges. I actually think charging for use makes a lot of sense. There’s no reason my monthly bill should be the same as my neighbor when they use it for nothing but email.
  - rconti 8y ago
    It doesn't, though. As a thought experiment, what if the caps went away tomorrow? Is it possible that the network would become saturated? If so, that is to say the caps might be reasonable. If not, how do you know that's the case? I'm not any happier with Comcast than anyone else; I recently moved from 1Gbps service to 250Mbps service with them, and I was always bumping up against the 'cap' on my 1Gbps service. I want a better provider. But nothing in the article proves that the caps are useless nor a money grab.
    - ra1n85 8y ago
      >Is it possible that the network would become saturated? That's on Comcast to handle as a part of building and operating a network. It should not be the concern of the customer.
      - 0x0 8y ago
        Cost of network construction and maintenance is always passed on the customers, though. Without considering Comcast specifically, generally it'd be somewhat unfair and unreasonable if most users have to pay more to subsidize the "elite 0.1%"'s data usage. So I think it's not as black-and-white as you make it out to be.
    - pwinnski 8y ago
      Stating that a headline doesn't match an article is a different claims from stating that an article fails to be convincing. One can disagree with the case they're making. But the headline was (now changed here): "Comcast disabled throttling system, proving data cap is just a money grab." The article covers both the fact that Comcast has disabled their throttling system, and why the writer thinks the remaining data cap is a money-grab. Whether you agree that the data caps are money-grabs or not is completely irrelevant to whether the headline is (was) appropriate. Your argument seems to be with the article, not the headline. The headline is like the label on box, and your argument seems to be with the contents of the box.
- mikeash 8y ago
  It’s not infinite, it’s still limited by your maximum throughput and the number of days in a month.
- mindslight 8y ago
  Metered service would be fine, if the marginal cost per byte were fixed or decreasing. When using an additional 25% of traffic causes one's bill to go up by 75% (especially when most of the price is fixed infrastructure costs), it's clear that the goal is just to gouge a captive userbase.
- bronco21016 8y ago
  5 day old account and a statement like that? Sounds a bit like a CableCo shill to me. Comcast offers service at speed tiers. When you pay for a speed tier you would expect to be able to use that speed a reasonable amount of time without having to spend extra. Nobody is expecting to max out their 150 Mbps connection 24/7 but that same connection starts hitting additional fees after 14 hours of maxing that connection in a month. Data caps are a clear money grab because they need new revenue for their dying TV business. A business dying because of their failure to innovate and constant gouging of customers due to monopolistic practices.
  - izzydata 8y ago
    I expect to be able to max out my advertised connection bandwidth 24/7. I don't see why I shouldn't have that expectation despite being physically impossible for everyone to do so. They shouldn't advertise those speeds alongside unlimited data perhaps.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
joecool1029 8y ago
Throttling/deprio only makes sense when your network sucks or you are spectrum constrained (as in the case for mobile isp's). Comcast could make the argument when they were overprovisioning their nodes like crazy the network sucked, but higher order modulation and more channels in newer DOCSIS standards, fiber being run everywhere to nodes has really improved the situation. Less of a cash grab, more of a bandaid to handle misallocated resources. The final argument could have been made for peering costs, but Comcast is really big now, so I doubt they have to pay much if anything for transit.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Throttling/deprio only makes sense when your network sucks Throttling is a reasonable response to the power-law distribution of network usage combined with flat-rate pricing. At a certain point on the curve, a marginal user will cost more to service than they will produce in revenue. This means (a) you service them at a loss or (b) distribute their loss over everyone else, i.e. increase prices. The problem with (b) is as you raise prices, people at the other end of the distribution (the unusually light, i.e. profitable, users) will start de-camping. Balancing these factors is difficult, and almost necessitates capping or throttling. The dumb move was promising unlimited data for an unlimited period of time.
readams 8y ago
Comcast has been playing the long game with the data caps. They know that everyone's needs will increase over time and we'll move from a cap that affects few people to one that affects most people. The cap will never increase however. What will increase is ways for Comcast to monetize the cap. Not like anyone has a choice, right?
- Reedx 8y ago
  A long game that could (and hopefully will) backfire once there are other options. There will be no loyalty to Comcast when it happens.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    Unfortunately they're also participating in the "Let's sue all municipal ISPs into the ground" strategy, which might preclude the ability to have other options.
    - zenbane 8y ago
      Let's see them try to sue space! Hopefully Starlink will be successful.
      - greglindahl 8y ago
        All of the satellite systems have a limited density of receivers, making them unable to have very many urban accounts: Oneweb, Starlink, O3b, etc.
  - Someone1234 8y ago
    Loyalty isn't required, Comcast have an ironclad monopoly in areas they operate.
- tzs 8y ago
  They have increased it in the past as average usage went up. It used to be 250 GB.
Simulacra 8y ago
That's nice that they don't throttle any more, but how about those data caps? A data cap is like a baggage fee on an airline: Once it's there, it's never going away.
- notheguyouthink 8y ago
  I'm very anti-Comcast, so this isn't a defense.. BUT, aren't data caps.. fine? Nothing is unlimited, so why pretend you can get an unlimited amount of data? Now that doesn't mean data caps themselves are the right solution to the "problem" (conceptually!), I'm just speaking to change the frame of mind of this. Imo, what we should be demanding is an SLA for normal customers. Cap speed or data, I don't care, but give me what I'm paying for at all times. As I see it right now you're getting capped on bandwidth, total data, and absolutely no guarantee about any of it working. It's the worst of all aspects.. for customers, great for Comcast I'm sure.
  - noncoml 8y ago
    > I'm very anti-Comcast, so this isn't a defense.. BUT, aren't data caps.. fine? Nothing is unlimited, so why pretend you can get an unlimited amount of data? Because from a networking point of view, data caps is an artificial thing. > Nothing is unlimited, so why pretend you can get an unlimited amount of data? Your connection is not unlimited anyway; the max you can get out of it is MAX BW * seconds/month. Since the providers don't have guarantees about the max bandwidth, it can vary depending on the demand from the other users, I don't see why you need an artificial data cap.
    - notheguyouthink 8y ago
      > Because from a networking point of view, data caps is an artificial thing. How so? If I limit you to 1MB a month, good luck clogging my pipes. I said it's not an effective method of approaching the problem, so I'm not defending them at all. > Your connection is not unlimited anyway; the max you can get out of it is MAX BW * seconds/month. Not true, if you have a data cap. Hence why data caps theoretically could serve a purpose. Again though, I'm not defending them. > Since the providers don't have guarantees about the max bandwidth, it can vary depending on the demand from the other users, I don't see why you need an artificial data cap. I agree. My point however is that complaining about data caps is besides the point entirely. We're lacking an SLA, we're lacking any way to ensure that we are getting what we're paying for. Data caps provide no real benefit to the idea that they sell of reducing network congestion. The only way they could is to have a very aggressive data cap, resulting in a large X% of your users not even having internet access due to being capped. This of course, is basically impossible, as people would flip out. By focusing on data caps we are, in my opinion, focusing on the red herring. Rather than getting what we're paying for on bandwidth, we're focusing on how much total data we can download.
rkarroll 8y ago
They're about to buy Fox. Probably doing this to look good to regulators.
dahdum 8y ago
Hypothetically, if they have a new throttling system they’d like to launch now that net neutrality is dead, I think they’d do exactly this. Get some PR spin for turning this one off, and implement the new website/service throttling system as a slow boil just as they did data caps.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tzs 8y ago
> But even before implementing data caps and overage fees, Comcast already had a method for ensuring fairness in pricing. Comcast has long required heavy Internet users to pay more than light Internet users by charging higher prices for higher bit-rates. I think he's tying speed and data more closely than is justifiable for most people. Many people (I'd guess maybe even most) want higher speeds not in order to use more data. They want it in order to use the same data as they now use but with less waiting. Comcast just upped me from 220 mbps to 500, for example. That is not going to have much affect on my data usage. It will just mean that when, for example, I decide to play an old MMORPG that I haven't played in a long time I won't have to wait as long to download all the patches I missed. It won't mean that I'll play more games. Same story when a year ago they upped me from 120 to 220. And a year before that when it went from 90 to 120.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ams6110 8y ago
  I'd like to be able to pay less for a throttled connection. 10Mbps is more than I need. But their slowest plan is 25Mbps.
- rabboRubble 8y ago
  I think he's tying speed and data more closely than is justifiable for most people. > you assume that people control their data usage that closely. I see a natural inflation in data usage because the services I use are inflating the data supplied to my requests. Streamed video sizes increase, I actually have had to use my cloud back up (3 times unfortunately) in the last 3 months so I've had to download 250gb * 3 because I actually had a cloud back up, web page sizes increase from ad-bloat, my hard disk is larger, so my back up size needs increase.. And so on, and so on, and so on... The speed increases are just a way to eventually tip you into data overages if the data cap does not increase proportionally to the speed increase.
alexdumitru 8y ago
I really don't understand how ISPs became like this in the US. In Romania I pay $9.9 for 1000 Mbps down / 500 Mbps up with no data caps or throttling and it actually works, even though piracy is huge here, so people use a lot of bandwidth. http://www.speedtest.net/result/7391249917 http://www.speedtest.net/result/7391249917
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > I really don't understand how ISPs became like this in the US. Government-sanctioned monopolies, and regulation to prevent competition from having a fighting chance. Basically regulation in the wrong places, while looking the other way in areas that could actually use more regulation.
- rhino369 8y ago
  I'd imagine a good part of the price difference is that good and services are generally cheaper in Romania. Wages in Romania are 20% of those in the USA (not 20% less, 20%). The fact I pay 75 dollars for the same service doesn't sound so absurd after accounting for that. And like consumer electronics, which easily flow across borders, which is why an Xbox costs the same in the USA and Romania, ISP is a local service that relies on local labor costs.
  - cannonedhamster 8y ago
    Not entirely accurate. It's cheaper to buy some things in the US than it is to buy in Romania, electronics for example. And if cost of employees were the only factor then you wouldn't see such wide differences in prices in the US depending upon whether or not there is competition. Or cities would cost less since there are more people to subsidize the costs, which we typically see the opposite of right up until competition comes in. Plainly, while location and cost of works plays some part in the cost structure, the vast majority of pricing for Comcast and other telcos is what the market will bear in a monopolistic environment. Were it simply the costs of doing business profit margins wouldn't be as drastic as they are. Despite the source the following breaks down the profit margins based on the telco's own information that they provide. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/time-warner-cables-97-pro_b_6591916.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/time-warner-ca...
kevin_b_er 8y ago
Yeah why throttle them when you can hand them pure profit surcharges instead?

57 points by koolba 8y ago

cautionarytale 8y ago

Awful headline. They're supposed to provide infinite product for a fixed price because the author wants it?

pwinnski 8y ago
The article does go into some detail to support their claim. You might not agree with the claim, but the headline is suitable for the article.
- endorphone 8y ago
  The article doesn't provide any argument to support the ridiculous headline. Before Comcast had a punitive financial threshold they used to throttle the heaviest users. Now they simply charge those users, while presumably the majority of people are cognizant that they should use some discretion to avoid the fees. Another user opines "it’s still limited by your maximum throughput and the number of days in a month" and this is an argument that seriously rubs me the wrong way because it's effectively a tragedy of the commons type argument -- I love having blistering fast internet when I need to download something, etc. But I realize I don't have a committed 500Mbps across the internet, and not far from me it's a shared resource.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I was responding to the claim that an unthrottled connection is “infinite.” I wasn’t actually making an argument about throttling or overage charges. I actually think charging for use makes a lot of sense. There’s no reason my monthly bill should be the same as my neighbor when they use it for nothing but email.
- rconti 8y ago
  It doesn't, though. As a thought experiment, what if the caps went away tomorrow? Is it possible that the network would become saturated? If so, that is to say the caps might be reasonable. If not, how do you know that's the case? I'm not any happier with Comcast than anyone else; I recently moved from 1Gbps service to 250Mbps service with them, and I was always bumping up against the 'cap' on my 1Gbps service. I want a better provider. But nothing in the article proves that the caps are useless nor a money grab.
  - ra1n85 8y ago
    >Is it possible that the network would become saturated? That's on Comcast to handle as a part of building and operating a network. It should not be the concern of the customer.
    - 0x0 8y ago
      Cost of network construction and maintenance is always passed on the customers, though. Without considering Comcast specifically, generally it'd be somewhat unfair and unreasonable if most users have to pay more to subsidize the "elite 0.1%"'s data usage. So I think it's not as black-and-white as you make it out to be.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    Stating that a headline doesn't match an article is a different claims from stating that an article fails to be convincing. One can disagree with the case they're making. But the headline was (now changed here): "Comcast disabled throttling system, proving data cap is just a money grab." The article covers both the fact that Comcast has disabled their throttling system, and why the writer thinks the remaining data cap is a money-grab. Whether you agree that the data caps are money-grabs or not is completely irrelevant to whether the headline is (was) appropriate. Your argument seems to be with the article, not the headline. The headline is like the label on box, and your argument seems to be with the contents of the box.
mikeash 8y ago
It’s not infinite, it’s still limited by your maximum throughput and the number of days in a month.
mindslight 8y ago
Metered service would be fine, if the marginal cost per byte were fixed or decreasing. When using an additional 25% of traffic causes one's bill to go up by 75% (especially when most of the price is fixed infrastructure costs), it's clear that the goal is just to gouge a captive userbase.
bronco21016 8y ago
5 day old account and a statement like that? Sounds a bit like a CableCo shill to me. Comcast offers service at speed tiers. When you pay for a speed tier you would expect to be able to use that speed a reasonable amount of time without having to spend extra. Nobody is expecting to max out their 150 Mbps connection 24/7 but that same connection starts hitting additional fees after 14 hours of maxing that connection in a month. Data caps are a clear money grab because they need new revenue for their dying TV business. A business dying because of their failure to innovate and constant gouging of customers due to monopolistic practices.
- izzydata 8y ago
  I expect to be able to max out my advertised connection bandwidth 24/7. I don't see why I shouldn't have that expectation despite being physically impossible for everyone to do so. They shouldn't advertise those speeds alongside unlimited data perhaps.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

joecool1029 8y ago

Throttling/deprio only makes sense when your network sucks or you are spectrum constrained (as in the case for mobile isp's). Comcast could make the argument when they were overprovisioning their nodes like crazy the network sucked, but higher order modulation and more channels in newer DOCSIS standards, fiber being run everywhere to nodes has really improved the situation. Less of a cash grab, more of a bandaid to handle misallocated resources. The final argument could have been made for peering costs, but Comcast is really big now, so I doubt they have to pay much if anything for transit.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Throttling/deprio only makes sense when your network sucks Throttling is a reasonable response to the power-law distribution of network usage combined with flat-rate pricing. At a certain point on the curve, a marginal user will cost more to service than they will produce in revenue. This means (a) you service them at a loss or (b) distribute their loss over everyone else, i.e. increase prices. The problem with (b) is as you raise prices, people at the other end of the distribution (the unusually light, i.e. profitable, users) will start de-camping. Balancing these factors is difficult, and almost necessitates capping or throttling. The dumb move was promising unlimited data for an unlimited period of time.

readams 8y ago

Comcast has been playing the long game with the data caps. They know that everyone's needs will increase over time and we'll move from a cap that affects few people to one that affects most people. The cap will never increase however. What will increase is ways for Comcast to monetize the cap. Not like anyone has a choice, right?

Reedx 8y ago
A long game that could (and hopefully will) backfire once there are other options. There will be no loyalty to Comcast when it happens.
- munk-a 8y ago
  Unfortunately they're also participating in the "Let's sue all municipal ISPs into the ground" strategy, which might preclude the ability to have other options.
  - zenbane 8y ago
    Let's see them try to sue space! Hopefully Starlink will be successful.
    - greglindahl 8y ago
      All of the satellite systems have a limited density of receivers, making them unable to have very many urban accounts: Oneweb, Starlink, O3b, etc.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  Loyalty isn't required, Comcast have an ironclad monopoly in areas they operate.
tzs 8y ago
They have increased it in the past as average usage went up. It used to be 250 GB.

Simulacra 8y ago

That's nice that they don't throttle any more, but how about those data caps? A data cap is like a baggage fee on an airline: Once it's there, it's never going away.

notheguyouthink 8y ago
I'm very anti-Comcast, so this isn't a defense.. BUT, aren't data caps.. fine? Nothing is unlimited, so why pretend you can get an unlimited amount of data? Now that doesn't mean data caps themselves are the right solution to the "problem" (conceptually!), I'm just speaking to change the frame of mind of this. Imo, what we should be demanding is an SLA for normal customers. Cap speed or data, I don't care, but give me what I'm paying for at all times. As I see it right now you're getting capped on bandwidth, total data, and absolutely no guarantee about any of it working. It's the worst of all aspects.. for customers, great for Comcast I'm sure.
- noncoml 8y ago
  > I'm very anti-Comcast, so this isn't a defense.. BUT, aren't data caps.. fine? Nothing is unlimited, so why pretend you can get an unlimited amount of data? Because from a networking point of view, data caps is an artificial thing. > Nothing is unlimited, so why pretend you can get an unlimited amount of data? Your connection is not unlimited anyway; the max you can get out of it is MAX BW * seconds/month. Since the providers don't have guarantees about the max bandwidth, it can vary depending on the demand from the other users, I don't see why you need an artificial data cap.
  - notheguyouthink 8y ago
    > Because from a networking point of view, data caps is an artificial thing. How so? If I limit you to 1MB a month, good luck clogging my pipes. I said it's not an effective method of approaching the problem, so I'm not defending them at all. > Your connection is not unlimited anyway; the max you can get out of it is MAX BW * seconds/month. Not true, if you have a data cap. Hence why data caps theoretically could serve a purpose. Again though, I'm not defending them. > Since the providers don't have guarantees about the max bandwidth, it can vary depending on the demand from the other users, I don't see why you need an artificial data cap. I agree. My point however is that complaining about data caps is besides the point entirely. We're lacking an SLA, we're lacking any way to ensure that we are getting what we're paying for. Data caps provide no real benefit to the idea that they sell of reducing network congestion. The only way they could is to have a very aggressive data cap, resulting in a large X% of your users not even having internet access due to being capped. This of course, is basically impossible, as people would flip out. By focusing on data caps we are, in my opinion, focusing on the red herring. Rather than getting what we're paying for on bandwidth, we're focusing on how much total data we can download.

rkarroll 8y ago

They're about to buy Fox. Probably doing this to look good to regulators.

dahdum 8y ago

Hypothetically, if they have a new throttling system they’d like to launch now that net neutrality is dead, I think they’d do exactly this. Get some PR spin for turning this one off, and implement the new website/service throttling system as a slow boil just as they did data caps.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tzs 8y ago

> But even before implementing data caps and overage fees, Comcast already had a method for ensuring fairness in pricing. Comcast has long required heavy Internet users to pay more than light Internet users by charging higher prices for higher bit-rates. I think he's tying speed and data more closely than is justifiable for most people. Many people (I'd guess maybe even most) want higher speeds not in order to use more data. They want it in order to use the same data as they now use but with less waiting. Comcast just upped me from 220 mbps to 500, for example. That is not going to have much affect on my data usage. It will just mean that when, for example, I decide to play an old MMORPG that I haven't played in a long time I won't have to wait as long to download all the patches I missed. It won't mean that I'll play more games. Same story when a year ago they upped me from 120 to 220. And a year before that when it went from 90 to 120.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ams6110 8y ago
I'd like to be able to pay less for a throttled connection. 10Mbps is more than I need. But their slowest plan is 25Mbps.
rabboRubble 8y ago
I think he's tying speed and data more closely than is justifiable for most people. > you assume that people control their data usage that closely. I see a natural inflation in data usage because the services I use are inflating the data supplied to my requests. Streamed video sizes increase, I actually have had to use my cloud back up (3 times unfortunately) in the last 3 months so I've had to download 250gb * 3 because I actually had a cloud back up, web page sizes increase from ad-bloat, my hard disk is larger, so my back up size needs increase.. And so on, and so on, and so on... The speed increases are just a way to eventually tip you into data overages if the data cap does not increase proportionally to the speed increase.

alexdumitru 8y ago

I really don't understand how ISPs became like this in the US. In Romania I pay $9.9 for 1000 Mbps down / 500 Mbps up with no data caps or throttling and it actually works, even though piracy is huge here, so people use a lot of bandwidth. http://www.speedtest.net/result/7391249917 http://www.speedtest.net/result/7391249917

craftyguy 8y ago
> I really don't understand how ISPs became like this in the US. Government-sanctioned monopolies, and regulation to prevent competition from having a fighting chance. Basically regulation in the wrong places, while looking the other way in areas that could actually use more regulation.
rhino369 8y ago
I'd imagine a good part of the price difference is that good and services are generally cheaper in Romania. Wages in Romania are 20% of those in the USA (not 20% less, 20%). The fact I pay 75 dollars for the same service doesn't sound so absurd after accounting for that. And like consumer electronics, which easily flow across borders, which is why an Xbox costs the same in the USA and Romania, ISP is a local service that relies on local labor costs.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  Not entirely accurate. It's cheaper to buy some things in the US than it is to buy in Romania, electronics for example. And if cost of employees were the only factor then you wouldn't see such wide differences in prices in the US depending upon whether or not there is competition. Or cities would cost less since there are more people to subsidize the costs, which we typically see the opposite of right up until competition comes in. Plainly, while location and cost of works plays some part in the cost structure, the vast majority of pricing for Comcast and other telcos is what the market will bear in a monopolistic environment. Were it simply the costs of doing business profit margins wouldn't be as drastic as they are. Despite the source the following breaks down the profit margins based on the telco's own information that they provide. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/time-warner-cables-97-pro_b_6591916.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/time-warner-ca...

kevin_b_er 8y ago

Yeah why throttle them when you can hand them pure profit surcharges instead?